There are a tremendous amount of food and beverage products that are stored in containers that are meant for single use and are then disposed of after use. These products include food stuffs as well as various beverages. The products can be stored in containers formed of different materials including aluminum cans and most commonly, plastic containers that can hold solids, semi-solids or liquids like beverages.
One of the largest subcategories is the field of bottled beverages. In particular, bottled water has become a large global industry. As with other products, when the containers of bottled water are reused one or more times, the water begins to exhibit a tarnished taste due to build up of foreign material along the inner walls of the container. This foreign material can include potentially dangerous bacteria build-up. In addition and unfortunately, one of the ill effects of the increasing growth of bottled water is the increasing waste that is generated and in particular, the plastic bottles represent waste products. While bottled water container can be recycled, many individuals are simply too lazy to recycle and/or their locales simply do not have a widespread recycling program. In fact, only about 25% of products that could be recycled are actually being recycled and when there are many billions of discarded bottled in just the U.S. each year, the number that end up in landfills is staggering.
Bottled water and similar products are also quite costly relative to the cost of tap water which in many or most households can have an acceptable to good taste and thus represents a source of drinkable water. For example, even if the local water supply has unfavorable characteristics, such as being “hard”, there are simple treatment devices that can be attached to faucets for treating the water and making it acceptable for, residential consumption.
There are many different techniques and devices for sterilizing surfaces and/or objects. One conventional sterilization method involves heating an object to high temperatures using dry heat, boiling water, and steam paths. These methods, however, consume a substantial amount of time and energy, and commercial apparatus can be costly. Moreover, the time-consuming nature of heat sterilization makes the method inconvenient in many situations including in a normal residential setting. The method is commonly used for heating tools (medical instruments) that are wrapped in special paper that indicates when the sterilization is complete. This type of device is typically slow, with sterilization taking on the order of up to an hour, although recent technology has cut the sterilization times down to 10 minutes or so. Steam sterilization using an autoclave is probably the most widely used type of device for sterilization. Similar to the dry heat method, instruments are packed in special paper. The package is then placed in a high pressure/high temperature steam bath. Steam penetrates all surfaces of the instrument. At the end of the process, the steam is removed from the chamber and the device comes out dry. Autoclaving, however, is also slow and can be detrimental to some plastics. Finally, boiling and pasteurization can be used when a high degree of sterilization is not needed; however, both techniques require 10 to 20 minutes to complete.
In addition to heat-based techniques, chemical sterilization can be used in heated vapor systems as well as in cold systems. This method offers shorter times, but can be more destructive to plastics. Also, the chemical solutions used may be highly corrosive and toxic.
Most common bacterial and cellular organisms that can cause sickness and disease in humans can be killed with moderate doses of ultraviolet light (e.g., UV light having a wavelength between about 200 nm and 280 nm (e.g., 250-260 nm). The use of (ultraviolet) UV light to sterilize work surfaces, equipment and the like require an external source of power, such as a wall socket, to produce a continuous stream of UV light. UV treatment has been disclosed in a variety of application including large scale plant applications where bottles that are part of a mass bottle filling process are first sterilized with UV light before the contents are delivered thereto. This type of machinery is industrial based and is thus on a large scale. There have been attempts to create a portable sterilizing apparatus to treat containers; however, these attempts have been mostly in the baby care industry and in particular, deal with sterilization of baby bottles, bottle nipples (teats), pacifiers, teething rings, etc. can be placed for sterilization by pulses of UV radiation. The problem with the above UV sterilizers is that they are either not suitable for use for sterilizing other types of common containers (bottles) that are more adult oriented and in particular, are not suitable for use with water bottles and the like.